Valentine's Ball

Saturday night was the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Valentine Ball. Landon and I were to be guests of the Thompsons, an obstetrician/gynecologist and her anesthesiologist husband, who also happens to be a gourmet chef.

We looked great, me in my red strapless velvet gown and Landon in his tux. Gee, I hadn't seen him in his tux since our wedding. :o) Didn't he look great?

The food was beyond delicious -- Gary had carefully planned the meal, and before every course, gave a full description of what we would be eating, including the wine selection. We had fresh tuna appetizers; butternut squash soup with candied ginger; filet mignon (cooked to perfection) with a smoked cream sauce, gnocchi and beans. Yum. Boy, was it good!

By far, one of the high points of the evening was the woman who was sitting to my right. During the dinner, she told me her life story, how she was pre-med, not enjoying studies and contemplating life tethered to a "beeper," when the nurses in the hospital she was working in told her all about their Caribbean vacation at Club Med, how they went on a trapeze and how much fun it was, and how they thought, as a gymnast, she would love it. Well, she was so good at it that Club Med hired her to be part of a circus and she was one of the trapeze artists! She assured me that she was working with highly educated people, her fellow trapeze artist a fellow physics major, and that she traveled in style. After her boyfriend (who has since become her husband) approached her in the circus tent with 2 dozen roses and implored her to come home, she did...and started a clown school for kids. There, she taught the kids how to make up their faces, how to have pie throwing contests, and how to make up their parent's faces. Now she is a mom of 5, all of them under the age of 8. What a hoot!

So, to all of you Yankees out there who think that you can't meet interesting people in the South, I give you Exhibit A. People down here are interesting, open and friendly...and most of them are...characters.